Still Here

Still here.

She’s still here. (I noticed this spider a few days ago, her temporary home established in my kitchen window.) 

I considered this, her continued presence, on a week when we’ve

• held vigil as a culture for suicide awareness and prevention,

• remembered September 11th and lives lost,

• attended to the comparative numbers to the lives lost to the tide of COVID-19,

• born witness to the devastating fires on the West coast, hopefully hearing their plea to actively and daily and RIGHT NOW become better stewards of climate change,

Meanwhile, we are still

• trying to learn our work of anti-racism, so our systems may be remade with mutuality, integrity, and abundant value for BIPOC bodies, spirits, and worth

• learning to honor and commit to intersectionality, an ongoing growth journey so that no identity is relegated to 'less than' in a false hierarchy

...

and 

so

much

more

we 

hold...

All these threads, and more, we hold, together and simultaneously. They are at times unbearably heavy and tangled. 

It occurs to me that to “still be here” holds more than circumstance in this day and age. 

To still be here means having survived and endured threats inward and outward, internal and external. 

To still be here means having successfully avoided the attention or fear of one that could cause harm. 

To still be here may mean having broken and remade yourself into a new shape that is entirely your own, and could both feel like still being here and no longer being here at the same time. 

To still be here is not a guarantee with which any of us will end the day or wake up the following morning. 

If you're reading this, you too are still here. Still sharing and inhabiting space with everyone else. Still holding your giftedness, uniqueness, and inherent worth you have always had. Still transforming oxygen to CO2, each inhale and exhale an investment spent on yourself and a foothold in unsteady ground, a promise of essence and existence. 

For your lament and survival on this day, 

For what you thought you might not endure, 

For what has nearly defeated you, 

For all you’ve lost and had to keep moving, 

For all the work it has taken to arrive here, 

For all the work left to do that feels daunting, 

I give thanks you are still here. 

And for all who are not, 

for those who we wish were still beside us, 

for those whose nearness we lack, whose smile we yearn for, whose connection we crave, 

may we never fail to 

hold them here with us, 

stand for them in their life's work, 

hear them as they whisper us their lessons and wisdom, 

honor them in what they felt was worth investing in, 

and continue to sing their song and tell their story.

It is an abundant, unpromised, time-limited treasure, to still be here.